Stottlemire asked Councilwoman Karen Hiller to seek to arrange for the governing body to discuss potentially making city fireworks rules more restrictive.

That body, consisting of the nine council members and Mayor Michelle De La Isla, plans to hold that discussion when it meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday in its chambers at 214 S.E. 8th.

Deputy city manager Doug Gerber said the talk will be "kind of a carry-over" from last July, when some council members suggested considering fireworks rules changes.

Concerns have been expressed about the loudness of some of the fireworks, as well as their effects on animals and people with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.

Gerber said city staff will share information with the governing body Tuesday about topics that include the rules the city has in place, how those compare to fireworks rules in other cities and what effects fireworks have on police and firefighting services provided by the city government.

Staff members will encourage governing body members to share ideas for fireworks rules revisions, with that input potentially leading to further discussion and perhaps consideration of rule changes, Gerber said.

Only two current governing body members — Hiller and Councilwoman Sylvia Ortiz — were on that body when it voted 7-2 on Dec. 13, 2011, to implement the city's current rules regarding consumer fireworks.

Hiller and Ortiz voted in favor of the ordinance involved, which defines consumer fireworks as "any small firework devices containing restricted amounts of pyrotechnic composition, designed primarily to produce visible or audible effects by combustion that comply with the construction, chemical composition, and labeling regulations of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission."

The ordinance enables consumer fireworks to be sold by authorized vendors for nine days, from June 27 to July 5, while allowing for fireworks to be discharged from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. July 1, 2 and 3 and from 8 a.m. to midnight July 4.

Former council members Chad Manspeaker and Andrew Gray, who voted against the ordinance in 2011, suggested it was too restrictive.

Manspeaker said the rules would create more of a "nanny state" in Topeka. Gray said they were “potentially unenforceable” and contended it was naive to think people buying fireworks before July 1 would wait until that day to shoot them.

Stottlemire, a retired Kansas Department of Health and Environment employee who has been an adjunct professor since 2000 at the University of Kansas Medical Center, said Topeka fireworks users always start well before July 1.

"As soon as they can buy them, they start shooting them," he said.

Stottlemire said he personally advocates banning consumer fireworks for health and safety reasons in Topeka at a time when an increasing number of Kansas communities have done so.

"But I want us to make that decision after we have a rational discussion," he said. "Let's talk about facts, not opinions."

Stottlemire said the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported an estimated 11,400 people were treated in 2013 in hospital emergency departments for fireworks-related injuries, representing the highest number since 1998, according to an article published last year in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

He made reference to how fireworks bans are in place in Kansas City, Mo., Grandview, Mo., and the Kansas municipalities of Fairway, Leawood, Mission, Merriam, Olathe, Overland Park and Prairie Village, according to a KCTV-5 article published last July.

Other municipalities maintain restrictive fireworks rules without observing a complete ban, according to that article. It said Lawrence, Roeland Park, Leavenworth and Lenexa are among cities that allow ground fireworks. such as snakes and caps, but not those that are fired into the air.

Stottlemire said he feels convinced that a fireworks ban in Topeka would be enforceable, and he encourages Topeka city officials to check with communities that have bans in place to find out how enforceable they have been.

He said acquaintances in Lawrence and Lenexa tell him it is "peaceful and quiet" in those cities around Independence Day.

Some cities are choosing instead to loosen fireworks restrictions.

Topeka city manager Brent Trout was city manager of Mason City, Iowa, where fireworks had previously been banned by state law, when its city council last June approved a compromise proposal allowing fireworks on July 3, July 4, Dec. 31 and until 12:30 a.m. Jan. 1, according to the Mason City Globe Gazette.

The Mason City council took up the matter after passage of a new Iowa law permitting fireworks sales for several weeks around the Fourth of July and New Year's Day while allowing cities and counties to make their own fireworks rules.

Topeka governing body members will accept public comments from anyone who wishes to speak on the topic at Tuesday's meeting. Those who wish to comment must call the city clerk's office at (785) 368-3940 to sign up by 5 p.m. Tuesday, or sign up in council chambers during the hour before the meeting.

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